The Big Caper | Page 4

said.
Frank nodded.
"I'm gettin' off at noon," the Sergeant said. "Thought we might go over to the beach and do a little surf castin'. Hear they're gettin' a few blues."
Frank shook his head. "Like to, fella," he said, "but I can't make it today. My uncle just got in from the North and I have to run out and get him settled."
Harrington stepped on the starter. "Too bad," he said. "Well, some other time." He pulled out of the station, still yawning.
Frank got into the Chevvie. He drove two blocks north and then turned west on Orange Drive. He crossed over the Florida East Coast tracks, continued on another couple of blocks, and found a parking space a few yards from the entrance to the Ranchers and Fruit Growers Trust Company. He cut the engine and climbed out of the car, at the same time reaching into his pocket for some change. He stopped in front of the car and put a couple of pennies into the parking meter. Then he crossed the sidewalk and entered the bank.
The Ranchers and Fruit Growers Trust was the only four-story structure in the town. It stood, an imposing monument to the prosperity of Indio Beach, at the intersection of Orange Drive and Seminole Avenue, in the very heart of the business section. Capitalized at $12,000,000, and a member of the Federal Reserve System, it was as strong as the Rock of Gibraltar. Its reputation and its soundness were beyond question.
On this Tuesday morning, a few minutes after nine, the pseudo-marble lobby, recently redecorated and air-conditioned, was crowded. There was a preponderance of tanned, dungareed ranchers from the Glades, wearing wide-brimmed Western hats. There were half a dozen men whom Frank recognized as orange and grapefruit growers from the eastern end of the county, a few housewives, and perhaps half a dozen sunburned, sport-shirted men with well-developed paunches whom he immediately placed as visitors from the North.
Hal Morgan, the bank's vice-president, was sitting at his desk in the enclosure just beyond the entrance and was talking to a tall, gaunt woman who stared at him with glazed and skeptical eyes. Hal looked up and smiled as Frank passed. Frank nodded and waved.
Frank went to the row of high desks in the center of the lobby and, taking a wallet from his rear right pocket, extracted three checks. He endorsed them on the back and then made out a deposit slip. They were small checks, one for three dollars and fifty cents, one for ten dollars, and one for twelve dollars and thirty cents.
He passed the half-dozen tellers' windows until he came to the last window on the north side of the room. The gold lettering on the sign said, "Miss Simpson."
Miss Simpson was the chief teller. Forty-six years old, thin to the point of emaciation, with a leathery, bony face hiding behind gold-rimmed glasses, Miss Simpson was an exceptionally competent person.
But for the accident of the Second World War, Mary Lou Simpson would probably never have been anything but a stenographer, or possibly a saleslady. But the war came along and the Ranchers and Fruit Growers Trust, like banks all over the country, suddenly became aware of an acute manpower shortage.
Miss Simpson had been hired and from the very first had proved to have an amazing adeptness for the work. Now, after a dozen years, she was an institution within an institution, and there was even talk of putting her on the board of directors someday.
It was only the second time that Frank had approached her window, but she remembered him at once. She greeted him with a thin but friendly smile.
"Mr. Harper," she said. "Nice to see you."
Frank smiled back and pushed the checks and the deposit slip under the grille. He was through in less than a minute and a half and turned to leave the bank.
For three months now, since the first week he had leased the run-down gas station, he had been making it a practice to stop by at the bank at least two or three times each week. He chose a different day of the week each time, a different hour of the day, a different teller's window. By now he knew the routine of the bank as well as it was possible for the casual layman to know it.
Leaving through the double glass doors of the bank, which opened and closed through the use of an electric eye, he saw Sam Loxley about to enter.
"Some night!" Sam, a small, wiry, dark man in his late twenties, smiled broadly.
"Sure was."
"Don't forget," Loxley said, "our house on Friday. And this time we'll really show you how to play canasta."
"Gee, I don't know, Sam," Frank said. "Kay and I may have to call that off. My uncle got into town this